


I found

by VesperNexus



Category: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John Le Carré
Genre: Angst, Espionage, Fluff, Jens is beautiful, M/M, Mentions of attempted suicide, they fall in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 16:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11063256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperNexus/pseuds/VesperNexus
Summary: Between their debates, and Jens’ philosophy, and Alec’s lack of philosophy, and that glorious, unused smile – he loses himself. In these moments, he is not the operator Leamas. There is no Circus, no Control, no post-war Germany. In these moments, there is Alec and Jens and some unspoken bond which ties them together irrevocably. Alec is taken with Jens’ sadness, his conviction, his self-doubt and his beauty.He does not think about it too much.Or, they one where Alec meets a stranger in a Berlin hospital. He does not expect to fall in love.





	I found

**Author's Note:**

> Set pre-book.
> 
> Because I am a sap and I should be more productive but this ship exists and it is taking over my life.
> 
> Titled inspired by Amber Run's I found.

 

**I Found**

And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be

_Right in front of me._

Talk some sense to me

 

*

 

Alec groaned, fingers clenching painfully in to the sheets of the bed. Of all the idiotic-moronic-ridiculous things he could have possibly done, drinking himself half to death was on the highest wrung of the bloody ladder.

One moment he’d been sat beneath the shaky bulb in a godforsaken bar, buried between other non-descript bars with the same stench. The next, he’d downed that bloody Russian stuff that burned his oesophagus so badly he had half a mind to wretch it back up. But he hadn’t – and as every sane, able-minded person with thoughts too deep into the bloody war, he’d taken another shot. And another.

The next moment his back was flat against the floor. It may have been hours or minutes later, but his vision was fading at the edges and he arbitrarily decided it didn’t matter anyway.

Alcohol poisoning was probably the tamest reason he’d ever been hospitalised for in Berlin. No bullet holes, stab wounds. Too much drink in his veins. He didn’t think it was a bad way to go.

In the white-walled room lined with linoleum, flooded with the quiet beeping of machines, he lay as comfortably as he could on the stiff bed. The sun was beginning to set, fractured rays of gold breaking through the white blinds. They’d pumped his stomach already and the pain in his abdomen was a bitch. He forced himself to stay still, let the Morphine do its utmost best to send him back to oblivion. For the first time in a long time, he missed London.

Not the bloody Circus or Control’s calculating gaze, of course not. He missed the rain, the traffic. Hell, he’d even missed the war-rhetoric of little men on high pedestals. He missed his dingy flat. He almost missed his wife.

Post-Nazi Germany was a sorry place. Walking through the streets of Berlin, he had been shrouded with and overwhelming flood of distrust and disconnect. People didn’t know how to interact anymore. Every smile, wave, if there were ever any, were forced, uncertain. Post-Nazi Germany was just a fractured stoke of a wheel broken by the desires of greedy, cowardly men. It was a land of hesitation, disillusionment, and Alec saw it most clearly in its people. The loss of identity and self permeated every man, woman and child.

He is snapped from his musings by the creaking of the door. He turns his head, propped up by the pillows beneath him.

A nurse walks in, and behind her, a shadow.

The boy – man? is like a wraith. His skin is ashen and stretches over too prominent cheekbones, purple bruises encircling large, unfocused eyes. He could not be taller than 5’6”, but the thinness of his hips and his protruding collar bone told Alec he weighed about half as much as he should. He seemed to drown in the patient’s uniform, the shoulder of his shirt sliding dangerously to reveal more pale skin.

He sits gingerly on the bed across from Alec. Around his wrists, padded cuffs. Alec releases a quiet breath – those were only for –

Oh.

The man seems to disappear beneath the covers, propped up as Alec was. The nurse grabs his forearm and with no amount of gentleness, stabs the needle connecting the IV drip to his hand. One clear bag, one black bag are attached to the pole. Nutrients and blood.

The blond nurse leaves without a word, only looking at Alec to sneer in his direction. The quiet _thud_ of the door echoes in the room.

Alec stares at his new companion, and his new companion stares at him. His eyes have regained some of their focus, and Alec is thrown off by their sheer intensity. In the sterile lighting, they seem almost too bright. The hollow lines of his face, the dishevelled state of his dark locks, the parting of his pale lips. He has, to Alec, a willow kind of beauty.

“I’m Alec,” he does not know why – why does he use his real name? why he introduce himself? There was something painfully captivating about the anguish in eyes which should be far younger.

“Congratulations,” the man replies in German, and Alec is surprised by the ruthless sarcasm in his voice. He almost laughs.

“Why did you do it?” His reply is in English.

The stranger lifts one neat eyebrow. “I suppose the inquisitive nature of the English isn’t a mere archetype.” Alec is surprised by the fluent tongue – even in English, he only has a slight Saxonian twang.

“I suppose suicide is still taboo, then?” He feels a sudden urge to provoke the stranger, to pierce through his casual German detachment. He is compelled, and he cannot explain why.

“I suppose trying to drink yourself to death isn’t?” His deduction is a breath of fresh air to Alec, who has spent the past five years dealing with drunks and men who shot before they questioned. He has his own IV pole and there is a hospital policy brochure tucked beneath his food tray on the bed-side table. He does not know how the stranger figured it out.

“How did you know?”

The stranger pulls his knees to his chest, and he looks far more vulnerable than Alec could have imagined. Something swells painfully in his chest. “Gertrude does not like drunks almost as much as she does not like Jews.”

The nurse. Clever.

“Besides, Englishmen in Berlin could not possibly cope sober.”

Alec smiles, feeling almost undone beneath the inquisitive and bright gaze of his companion.

“I’m Alec,” he repeats absentmindedly. He feels the numbness imposed by blessed drugs tingling his toes.

“Jens,” he hears in the distance. There, again – that hesitance of a man unsure of his place. “I’m Jens,”

He falls asleep, although Jens does not.

*

Alec wakes slowly, as if gentle hands gradually ease him into the world of conscience.

“Perhaps,” he hears before he has opened his eyes. It is the nurse. The German words roll of her tongue almost angrily. “Vielleicht beim nächsten Mal könntest du es richtig machen…” His brain helpfully translates: _Perhaps next time you could do it properly. Most of us would appreciate it._

He opens his eyes once the door shuts, an anger simmering in his veins. He sits up almost too carelessly,

“You’ll pull something if you are not careful,” Jens.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” _Why didn’t I?_

Jens looks a little bit surprised. He is sat up as yesterday, having not suffered a wink of sleep. His legs are stretched before him, a thick book resting beneath one hand. “About what?”

Alec does not yell. “The well wishes of the bloody nurse!” His sarcasm is far too prevalent.

Yet Jens has the decency to smile. “Gertrude?” he asks innocently. When Alec nods, “A few words, here and there, Alec, they do not make much of a difference.” He lunges back into the pillows, his collarbone protruding so visibly Alec thought it may pierce the fragile skin. “Perhaps she is right, you know. A one night stay in a hospital in Berlin costs over a hundred euros.”

Alec does not reply.

For a while, they sit in silence. Jens does not seem to be bothered by Alec’s stare, focused instead on the book cradled in his palms.

They sit for an hour or so in quiet. Alec thinks of many things: the Circus and Control again. He thinks about Smiley and Haydon and Esterhase and all the men at the _top_ , who told you everything you did not want to hear and nothing you wanted to know. Looking at Jens, young, disenfranchised, he feels old. The hair at his temples will begin to grey soon. Hopefully by then he will be far from Berlin and Germany and the hopelessness which drowns the country and its people alike. He does not care if he is alone, if he is no longer an operator. He has fought his war, and he sees its damning results in the hollow stranger who sits in the bed opposite his.

Breakfast in uneventful, and the spiteful gaze of the nurse applies equally to today as it did yesterday.

Alec eats slowly, thin soup and seasonal fruit and custard close to its due. Jens does not. He does not even look at the food, leaving it to rest on the bedside table untouched.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Jens looks up from his book, having only now noticed Alec. “Seems wasteful.”

Alec watches as Jens’ cheeks burn red, and he knows what he has done wrong. Jens looked embarrassed, his knuckles white as they curve around the thick book. “I know I mustn’t waste it, but I-”

He voice is lost, eaten up by the pervasive silence. Alec takes another look at the padded cuffs which almost slide of wrists so thin. He imagines he can count Jens’ ribs through his skin with no difficulty. Shame bubbles in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he has not apologised to anyone for a long time. “I didn’t mean to insinuate anything.”

Jens keeps his head bowed. “I don’t feel hunger, not like before.”

He drinks some soup at lunch and he looks sickened by it. Alec removes himself. He fantasises about the day he is strong enough to leave his bed. For the rest of the day, neither speak.

*

On the third day, Leamas asks Jens what he’s reading.

The almost-stranger lifts up the hard-cover. _Das Kapital, Volume 1._ Of course. Alec roles his eyes.

“You don’t believe in Marx?” Jens phrases like he’s asking something so everyday: _You don’t believe in God?_ For a moment, Alec remembers Control’s _Godless Commies_ rhetoric.

He debates mitigating his answer. “No.”

Jens puts the book on his lap, staring intensely at Alec. “Are you a Capitalist?”

Alec hesitates. “No.”

Jens raises his eyebrow, tilting his head inquisitively. Alec is struck by how young he looks in that moment. “Then what is it?”

“What is what?”

“Your philosophy,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“I don’t have one.”

“Of course you do.”

“I really don’t,” he tries, but Jens just laughs. His laughter is a soft, boyish thing. It sounds oddly pleasant to Alec’s ears.

“Then what is your reasoning? You must have a purpose for your actions.”

Once, Alec may have said his children. Once, he may have said his country. But the war is over, and all that remains is the scuttle of small men burying big knives into each other’s turned backs.

“I’m afraid I’m not German.”

Jens _tssks_ , as if Alec has missed the point of the conversation. “Everyone has a philosophy, though so few are stubborn enough to disregard it.”

“I’m not disregarding anything,” he leans back into his pillows, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t need the beliefs of dead men - who understood so little of the world - to feel validated.”

“Who understood so little-” Jens looks affronted, and colour washes away the translucency of his skin. Something within Alec unclenches.

And so they argue, from morning until dusk. Only Gertrude interrupts, her hateful rhetoric causing Alec’s nails to dig into the mattress. Jens would only smile at him however, from across the room, a soft, quiet almost hidden thing. Almost hidden. And he would calm and Gertrude would leave and they would argue – beliefs to philosophy to _the individual_.

Alec barely feels the time past before the drugs beckon him back to sleep.

*

The days pass quickly. Neither of them have much to do: Jens reads his book, Alec mocks his reverence of Marx, and no one visits them. Alec cannot help but wonder why.

“Where is your family?”

When Jens doesn’t answer, he thinks he may have overstepped. He isn’t even sure why he has asked. _You’ll never see him again_ , he reassures himself. _It is not attachment._

“Canada,” he says simply, and that’s that.

There’s a moment of silence. They stare at each other – Jens eyes deconstructing Alec like he does his book. Alec feelings strangely bare beneath the inquisitive gaze.

“Do you have one?”

Alec draws in a deep breath. Jens hadn’t asked _where_ his family was. He asked if he even had one.

For the first time, he begins to feel wary of his companion’s gaze. He is too clever for his own bloody good.

“No,” he says, and that’s that.

*

On the sixth day, Alec learns Jens is a student.

“Law?”

“Yes,” he doesn’t volunteer anything else.

“Have you started?”

“Not yet.”

“Doesn’t it seem redundant to kill yourself before you start your studies?”

It slips out before he can stop it, and Alec blames the drugs. He does not know what it is about Jens that makes him lose his filter. _Brilliant._

But Jens only laughs, and Alec is taken aback. His bright eyes twinkle beneath the harsh light and his skin looks a little less sallow. “I suppose it does. It doesn’t matter though does it – I didn’t exactly manage it.”

Alec releases a breath he does not know he was holding. He changes the topic quickly. “So why law?”

Jens looks a little bit uncertain, as if he had never been asked so before. He licks his lips, and Alec is drawn to the movement. Jens has not noticed – he focuses on a space by his knee. He picks at invisible lint on the thin bedsheet. “Change must come from the authority,” his voice is too quiet, his words surprisingly firm, as if they are not his at all. “Change starts with the Government – the authorities – the establishment – the law, if you will.” He releases a shallow breath. It is too still. “We must change… as a peoples, as a culture, as country, if we are to prevent another Holocaust.”

Alec does not know where his voice has gone. He is captured, in that quiet moment, but the assurance in Jens’ silky voice. The faith, the conviction. He feels compelled to believe what he says. Jens is as glorious as he is absolutely tragic, and Alec cannot avert his gaze.

Jens looks up again, and Alec is still staring. A red tint colours his cheeks. It is surprisingly endearing.

“I want to instigate that change.” The confession feels raw, and Alec has no words.

So he says nothing. He only smiles.

When the not-so-stranger smiles back at him, shyly, Alec knows he has done something right.

*

Alec cannot place the moment the _stranger_ became the _almost-stranger_ , or the moment the _almost-stranger_ became _Jens._

Between their debates, and Jens’ philosophy, and Alec’s _lack_ of philosophy, and that glorious, unused smile – he loses himself. In these moments, he is not the operator Leamas. There is no Circus, no Control, no post-war Germany. In these moments, there is Alec and Jens and some unspoken bond which ties them together irrevocably. Alec is taken with Jens’ sadness, his conviction, his self-doubt and his beauty.

He does not think about it too much.

*

Today is the day Jens leaves.

Alec knows, because his book has disappeared into an old bag with too many holes, and there is a nervous tension which seems to course through his fingers to his toes.

He is leaving, and Alec is glad.

He is glad Jens is leaving because he does not want him to go. For a spy, this is especially dangerous. Attachment. He no longer denies it. It has taken Alec seven days to become more emotionally attached to the hollow no-longer-a-stranger than he had his own wife. He is not naïve enough to deny it.

Jens is a mystery, a puzzle Alec wants to solve. It is an unusual feeling: Alec is practical. He is not an evaluator – he does, he does not need to think about what he does. When there is a mission, he completes it. Devoid of emotion, personal opinion. He is an operator stationed in post-Nazi Germany. He has agents. That is all.

But Jens – the young Jewish wraith with the old eyes and devious smile and cheekbones so sharp they may cut through his translucent skin. Jens has confronted him with philosophy, with universal truths, with the kind of conversation he has only heard from Control. For a while, he had obliged. But Alec is not that type of man, and pretending he is – it is perhaps the most dangerous thing of all.

So Jens is leaving, and Alec imagines he does not feel regret. He wonders, not for the first time, how comfortably his hands would rest on those slim hips. How he could curl his fingers under that chin – how Jens would look up at him and smile that quiet, unused smile. He wonders if Jens’ skin is as soft as it looks, if his tongue is as quick as it seems. And yet, Alec is a spy for one ideologically unstable power, and Jens is too much a Communist and too much a man. Destabilised by his imbalanced Germany – Jens is cathartic in his beauty, and Alec is drawn to him like a magnet. And so, Alec is glad he is leaving because he wishes he were not.

“You’re leaving then?” He says it like a question though both know it is not.

Jens had changed while Alec had been sleeping. His dress shirt was still too large for him and his coat hangs of his slim shoulders. There is an air of fragility to him, and Alec wrestles with the protective urges which bubble between his ribs.

Jens smiles. Gertrude has just left – for what Alec hopes is the last time but knows is not. He stands from the bed and walks towards Alec, who is sat in his bed propped up by the same pillows as he was seven days ago.

He sits on the edge of Alec’s bed, not two inches from him, with an air of quiet self-assurance, like a man who knows his rightful place. This is the closest Jens had ever been to him, and from here Alec can see the bright colours in his eyes, the way his long lashes curve. The brittle thinness of his fingers.

Jens meets his eyes and leans in ever-so slightly.

“Yes.”

Alec does not hesitate. He leans forward too – carefully. He moves his hand slowly, until his fingers edge beneath Jens’ coat. His palm rests just above his waist, and he can count all ribs protruding beneath his touch. Jens leans into his palm, as if the hand at his side had always been there.

His other hand cradles Jens’ cheek, his coarse thumb running over his cheekbone. The moment passes slowly.

Alec kisses him. It is not unexpected: it is as if every second of the past week had been leading up to this. As if they are both actors who have bloodied themselves reciting the same script.

Jens is sweet and bitter and compliant. Alec has never kissed a man before and he has never _thought_ about kissing a man before. Jens kisses him back, and he is coy and firm and perfect, and Alec wonders how spectacularly they fit together in this moment. He tastes pain and anguish and longing, and all that could be and all that will not.

Jens is perfect to him, in every sense of the word.

They break apart but they remain close. Alec runs his fingers down to his companion’s waist and wonders what it would be like to make love to him. Jens is sharp and hollow and lithe in all the right places. He is fragile and brittle and Alec yearns to put him back together. He knows he can. Between soft sheets, he could kiss him senseless and piece together all the jagged bits of his soul. He could run his fingers down all the concave places, the jagged places, he could explore every inch of the broken body beneath him. He could have Jens, for the years he stayed in Berlin. He knows he could – they would love and argue and they could be glorious.

It would be so easy to fall in love with him.

And for that reason, Alec leans back.

Jens smiles a sad smile. His fingers brush over the hand at his cheek, and his eyes strip every one of Alec’s defences.

“Goodbye Alec.”

He does not tell him where he will be studying, where he lives, where he will go. Jens knows Alec may chase him, and that is a temptation neither will ignore.

“Goodbye Jens.”

Jens leaves and does not look back, and Alec is left wondering what may have been.

*

It had been too easy to fall in love with him, though Alec cannot bring himself to regret it.

_Fin._

 

 


End file.
